Hugh Ferriss, Metropolis.

HUGH FERRISS

METROPOLIS

Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Center
June 6 - July 30, 1986

Chicago Tribune Tower, 1927

HUGH FERRISS: METROPOLIS

Hugh Ferriss (1889-1962) was the master draftsman of the Amer-
ican metropolis, real and ideal. As one of the nation's leading
architectural delineators, he was hired to render hundreds of new
buildings and projects in cities across the country, while as a vision-
ary architect and author of The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929), he
conceived an ideal city of majestic towers that seemed to embody
the American dream of progress and prosperity. One of the many
inspired reviewers of Metropolis hailed Ferriss as "a poet among
architects, an artist who can trcnslate in terms of steel, the soaring
aspirations of men."*

Ferriss' expressive charcoal drawings mixed poetry and power
in a twentieth-centtry version of the Sublime — he was awed not by
the overwhelming forces of nature, but by the constructive energy
of man. Exaggerating the monumental qualities of structures and
suppressing ornament and detail, he reduced buildings to the
profound power of their simple mass. His rich chiaroscuro render-
ings veiled the city in a mist of romance. In daylight scenes, he
dissolved buildings in atmospheric effects, muting the dissonance
of urban life, and for night visions, he drew dark and silent silhou-
ettes against jazz lights.

Ferriss defined the art of rendering — which he contrasted to
the mechanical act of drafting — as "an attempt to tell the Truth
about a Building." His idea of truth was not a literal, visual veracity,
but an interpretation of the architectural significance of a structure.
"Buildings," he asserted, "possess an individual existence, varying
— now dynamic, now serene — but vital, as all else in the universe."
Like a portraitist, he sought to reveal "the emotional tone, the par-
ticular mood" of his subject, and like any great artist, he imprinted
his own personality on every drawing.

"The underlying truth of a building," wrote Ferriss, "is that it is
a Mass in Space." In his characteristic rendering style, Ferriss con-
ceptualized the building as a simple, sculptural mass, first shading
the entire form and blending the surface in smoothly modeled
planes. Then, working like a sculptor carving from a solid block, he
created details by lightening areas with an eraser or paper stump.
This method seems to have evolved from his important drawings of
the "zoning envelope" of 1922, developed in collaboration with the
architect Harvey Wiley Corbett. Designed to study the limitations
imposed by the 1916 New York zoning law on the maximum bulk of
a building, these striking images impressed contemporaries with
the beauty of the undisguised setback mass and significantly influ-
enced the formal aesthetic of Art Deco skyscrapers of the 1920s.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Ferriss received a degree in archi-
tecture from Washington University in 1911. The following year he
moved to New York and worked as a draftsman in the large office
of Cass Gilbert until 1915, when he launched his long-dreamed-of

career as a freelance delineator. Most of his early commissions
were for magazine illustrations and advertisements, but by the early
1920s, perspective drawings commissioned by architectural firms
became his principal work. In 1922 he began to collaborate with
progressive architects such as Corbett and Raymond Hood and to
illustrate their visionary proposals. These commissions informed
and inspired his own contemporary theorizing, and in April 1925 he
mounted an exhibition of his drawings of the future city at the
Anderson Galleries in New York.

In 1929, Ferriss published his masterpiece, The Metropolis of
Tomorrow. In it, he collected many of his finest drawings of the
twenties, presenting new work only in the final section. Organized
as a three-part thesis, the book examined contemporary design
and projected trends, then proposed a vision of urban utopia.
Ferriss illustrated an urban landscape of monumental setback cen-
ters, widely separated and hierarchically positioned in a geometric
and symbolic city plan. In his text he charged that the contempo-
rary city suffered from a total lack of planning and warned that
architects must plan to preserve human values in the face of
inexorable urban growth. Although it was published just after the
Wall Street crash, Metropolis inspired ecstatic reviews and Ferriss
was extolled as America's principal prophet of the urban future.

The Depression disillusioned Ferriss about the capitalist city
and precipitated many changes in American architecture generally.
In this, the second phase of his career, his practice and his stature
in the architectural establishment grew steadily. He often served as
official delineator and design consultant on large projects, such as
the 1939 New York World's Fair and the United Nations Headquar-
ters. In 1940, funded by a grant from The Architectural League of
New York, he traveled across the country, sketching the most out-
standing structures erected since 1929. He was attracted to facto-
ries, research centers, highways, and bridges — and especially to
the great new hydroelectric dams of the West. Many of these draw-
ings were exhibited in a one-artist show at the Whitney Museum of
American Art in 1942 and were later collected in Ferriss' second
book, Power in Buildings (1953).

Although trained as an architect, Ferriss elected to draw rather
than to build — yet he nevertheless perceived his role as a form-
giver and theorist. If today his grandiose vision of urban utopia
contradicts the contemporary idea of a livable city, his images
remain inspiring for their timeless beauty and humanist intent. They
document the dreams of a man who believed that the ambition to
rebuild the American metropolis for the benefit of all its citizens was

an achievable goal.

Carol Willis

Guest Curator

"All quotations from Hugh Ferriss' writings are taken from Carol Willis,
"Drawing Towards Metropolis," in The Metropolis of Tomorrow, reprint
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press, 1986).

Works in the Exhibition

Dimensions are in inches; height
precedes width.

In the following list, Avery Architectural
and Fine Arts Library, Columbia
University, New York, is abbreviated as
Avery Library, Columbia University.

The Fourth of July Parade,
Convoyed by Airplanes,
Passing the Public Library,
New York, 1918

Charcoal on paper, 22/2 x 16/8
Prints Division, The New York Public

Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden

Foundations

View of The New York Times Tower,

c. 1920

Pencil on paper, 17% x 10% (sight)

Collection of Carter B. Horsley

Study for the Maximum Mass

Permitted by the 1916 New York

Zoning Law, Stage 1, 1922

Carbon pencil, brush, and black ink,
stumped and varnished over
photostatic image on illustration
board, 26/4 x 20

Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of Design, New York; Gift
of Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Study for the Maximum Mass
Permitted by the 1916 New York
Zoning Law, Stage 2, 1922
Carbon pencil, brush, and black ink,
stumped and varnished over
photostatic image on illustration
board, 26% x 20
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of Design, New York; Gift
of Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Study for the Maximum Mass
Permitted by the 1916 New York
Zoning Law, Stage 3, 1922
Carbon pencil, brush, and black ink,
stumped and varnished over
photostatic image on illustration
board, 26% x 20Vi6
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of Design, New York; Gift
of Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Study for the Maximum Mass

Permitted by the 1916 New York

Zoning Law, Stage 4, c 1925

Carbon pencil, brush, and black ink,
stumped and varnished on
illustration board, 26/4 x 20

Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of Design, New York; Gift
of Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

A Proposed Art Center for Manhattan,

1923

Charcoal and ink with touches of color

on paper, 22Va x 39%
Regional Plan Association, New York

Reconstruction of the Temple of
Solomon, bird's-eye view, 1923
Helmle and Corbett, architects
Black ink and charcoal on board,

29% x 38/2
Avery Library, Columbia University

Buildings Like Mountains, 1924
Charcoal crayon on tracing paper

mounted on board, 1 1 x 8'/2
Collection of Ferdinand Eiseman

Pacific Telephone and Telegraph
Building, San Francisco, 1924
Miller and Pflueger, architects
Charcoal pencil on paper,

32/2 x 20 (sight)
Pflueger Architects, San Francisco

Crude Clay for Architects, c. 1924
Charcoal on Academy board fixed with

shellac, 16/4 x 19/2
Avery Library, Columbia University

The City at Night:

Descent into the Streets, 1925

Lithographic crayon on heavy wove

paper, 15% x 22/4
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National

Museum of Design, New York, Gift

of Jean Ferriss Leich

Farmer's Loan and Trust Company
Building, New York, 1925

Starrett and Van Vleck, architects
Black crayon on paper, 26% x 18Vi6
Prints Division, The New York Public

Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden

Foundations

The Final Mass Carried Out in Steel, 192.'
Lithographic crayon stumped and
varnished over photostatic image
on illustration board, 31 Vi x 23/4
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of Design, New York; Gift
of Jean Ferriss Leich

The Lure of the City, 1925

Charcoal and pencil on paper, 15 x 22

Collection of Ann Ferriss Harris

Skyscraper Church, 1925
McKim, Mead, and White, architects
Charcoal pencil on board, 30/2 x 20'/i
Avery Library, Columbia University

Steinway Hall, New York, 1925
Warren and Wetmore, architects
Charcoal pencil on board, 31 x 23
Collection of Jonathan Halper

"Toward Tomorrow with Lehigh
Cement," 1925

Charcoal on paper, 25% x 19/4
Avery Library, Columbia University

Imaginary View of Angkor Wat, 1926
Charcoal on board, 20% x 31%
Collection of Jacqueline Jenks McCabe

The Ziegfeld Theatre, New York, 1926

Joseph Urban, architect
Charcoal crayon on paper, 33% x 30V<i
Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Columbia University, New York

Chicago Tribune Tower, 1927
Howells and Hood, architects
Charcoal pencil on board,

19% x 12'/2 (image)
Avery Library, Columbia University

Conceptual sketches for

The Metropolis of Tomorrow, drawn

on the back of a letter, 1927

Pencil on paper, 10x7

Avery Library, Columbia University

Pacific Edgewater Club,
San Francisco, 1927
Miller and Pflueger, architects
Charcoal pencil on paper,

32 x 48 (sight)
Pflueger Architects, San Francisco

Study for The Business Center, 1927
Pencil on tracing paper, 28% x 35
Avery Library, Columbia University

Study for Vista in the Business Zone,

c. 1927

Pencil on tracing paper, 21% x 19%

Avery Library, Columbia University

J. L. Hudson Company, Detroit, 1928
Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls, architects
Charcoal pencil on paper, 28 x 24
Collection of Lucretia Hart Weddigen

The Merchandise Mart, Chicago, 1928
Graham, Anderson, Probst and White,

architects
Charcoal pencil on paper, 20 x 28
The Merchandise Mart, Chicago

Night in the Science Zone, 1928
Wolff crayon, paper stump, and
kneaded eraser, 17/2 x 10/2
Collection of Ellen Leich Moon

Philosophy, 1928

Charcoal pencil on paper, 38 x 22

Avery Library, Columbia University

Smith-Young Tower, San Antonio
(now Tower-Life Building), 1928
Robert M. Ayres, architect
Charcoal pencil on paper, 30V2 x 17%
Collection of Mrs. Robert M. Ayres

Study for Philosophy, 1928

Pencil on tracing paper, 4016 x 22

Avery Library, Columbia University

Bank of Manhattan Company

Building, 40 Wall Street,

New York, 1929

H. Craig Severance, architect; Yasuo

Matsui, associate
Charcoal pencil on paper, 72/2 x 35%
Museum of the City of New York

Master Building, New York, 1929
Corbett, Harrison, and MacMurray,

architects; Sugerman and Berger,

associates
Charcoal on board, 47/2 x 21 Vi
Collection of Nettie S. Horch

Preliminary sketch, a Seaport, 1930
Charcoal pencil on tracing paper,

171/4 x 23/2
Avery Library, Columbia University

Preliminary sketch, a Skeletal Tower,

1930

Charcoal pencil on tracing paper,

26% x 16
Avery Library, Columbia University

Twin Office Buildings, 1932
Graphite, pen, black and red ink, and

dark gray wash on illustration

board, 22% x 16
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National

Museum of Design, New York; Gift

of Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Imaginary Pavilion Projected for the
1939 New York World's Fair, 1936
Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon, architects
Charcoal pencil on paper mounted on

board, 21% x 16%
Avery Library, Columbia University

"A Visitor's First View of the World's
Fair of 1939," 1936

Charcoal crayon on paper mounted on

board, 19 x 30
Avery Library, Columbia University

Perisphere and Trylon under
Construction, 1939 New York World's
Fair, 1938
Wallace K. Harrison and J. Andre

Fouilhoux, architects
Charcoal and charcoal pencil on

paper, 1 1% x 19%
Collection of Christopher Leich

Perisphere in Construction, 1939
New York World's Fair, 1938

Wallace K. Harrison and J. Andre
Fouilhoux, architects

Black chalk with touches of red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, and
white chalk on board, 17% x 27'/8

Avery Library, Columbia University

The Demolition of the Hippodrome
("The Last Column"), c 1939
Black crayon on board, 12% x 14
Avery Library, Columbia University

Steel Porch, c. 1939
Pencil on board, 18 x 13!£
Avery Library, Columbia University

Ohio Steel Foundry, Lima, Ohio, 1940
Albert Kahn, architect
Charcoal pencil on paper, 17'/2 x 25
Avery Library, Columbia University

Viaduct on Washington Heights,

New York, 1940

Aymar Embury II, consulting architect;

John Evans, engineer
Charcoal pencil on board, 11% x 17%
Avery Library, Columbia University

Cherokee Dam near Jefferson City,
Tennessee, October 9, 1941
Architects and engineers of the
Tennessee Valley Authority
Charcoal on paper mounted on board,

10% x 16%
The Saint Louis Art Museum; Gift of
Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Johnson Wax Co. Building,

Racine, Wisconsin, 1941

Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

Charcoal and charcoal pencil with
touches of red conte on French
charcoal paper, 17% x 23'/2

Avery Library, Columbia University

Red Rock Amphitheater, Colorado,

1941

Burnham Hoyt, architect

Charcoal and charcoal pencil on

paper, 1 7'/s x 23</2
Avery Library, Columbia University

Cherokee Dam, c 1941
Architects and engineers of the
Tennessee Valley Authority
Charcoal on cardboard, 29'/2 x 29%
The Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of
Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Grain Elevator, Night View, c 1941
Charcoal pencil on paper, 19 x 25
Avery Library, Columbia University

Hoover Dam, Arizona-Nevada Line,

c 1941

United States Bureau of Reclamation,

Gordon B. Kauffmann, consulting

architect
Charcoal pencil on board, 25 '/? x 17%
Avery Library, Columbia University

Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona,
c 1941

Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

Charcoal and charcoal pencil on heavy

paper mounted on Bristol board,

15/4 x 19'/<
Avery Library, Columbia University

Bombproof Shelter, c 1942
Charcoal on paper, 21% x 30%
The Saint Louis Art Museum; Gift of
Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

Preliminary sketch, Shasta Dam,

Redding, California, 1943

United States Bureau of Reclamation,

Gordon B. Kauffmann and Earl C.

Morris, consulting architects
Charcoal pencil on paper, 20 x 17%
Avery Library, Columbia University

Zapotec Pyramid, Monte Alban,

Oaxaca, Mexico, 1943

Charcoal and red conte on paper,

21 Vi x 24
Collection of Jean Ferriss Leich

Airplane with Boarding Passengers,

c. 1943

Charcoal on paper with touches of red

and white chalk, 13 x 22%
Avery Library, Columbia University

Rockefeller Center, New York, 1947
Associated Architects of Rockefeller

Center
Charcoal pencil on board, 26 x 34
Collection of Jean Ferriss Leich

United Nations, Study #32,
Drawing 56, April 28, 1947
UN Headquarters Planning Staff
Pencil on paper, 15% x 22%
Avery Library, Columbia University

General View, United Nations
Headquarters, New York, 1949
UN Headquarters Planning Staff
Charcoal and charcoal pencil

heightened with white on paper,

21'/> x 31
Collection of Jean Ferriss Leich

Proposed Development, Foley
Square, New York, c 1949
Cameron Clark, consulting architect
Charcoal pencil on board, 29% x 23'/2
The Architectural League of New York

Lever House, New York, c. 1953

Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill,
architects; Gordon Bundshaft,
partner in charge of design

Charcoal pencil on board,
10% x lOW (image)

Avery Library, Columbia University

Shelton Hotel, New York, c 1953
(copy of a 1927 original)
Arthur Loomis Harmon, architect
Wax crayon on illustration board,

15'/e x ll'/4 (image)
Avery Library, Columbia University

New York Zoning, three studies of
proposed zoning resolution on
Park Avenue, 1959
Pencil on tracing paper mounted on

board, 13'/2 x 17
Avery Library, Columbia University

Four site sketches, The New York
Times Tower, 1961
Pencil on paper, 5x7 (each)
Avery Library, Columbia University

The New York Times Tower Proposed

Renovation, April 24, 1961

Pencil on paper, 20 x 14

Avery Library, Columbia University

Temple of the Dance, n.d.
Charcoal with touches of red, green,

and white pastel on board,

1 7 x 24>/8
Avery Library, Columbia University

The following Ferriss drawings survive in
the form of photostats, newspaper
reproductions, or photographs.

"Building a Battleship,"
The New York Herald Tribune
Graphic, June 9, 1918
Gravure on newsprint, 22 x 16
Collection of Carol Willis

Convocation Tower, Madison Square,
New York, 1921

Bertram G. Goodhue, architect
Photostat mounted on illustration

board, 23%6 x 14%
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The

Smithsonian Institution's National

Museum of Design, New York; Gift

of Mrs. Hugh Ferriss

"The New Architecture," The New York
Times Book Review and Magazine,

March 19, 1922

Gravure on newsprint, I6V2 x 22

Collection of Carol Willis

Eight photographs by Palmer
Shannon of Ferriss drawings, c. 1927

Base of a Two-block Building

Belden Project

Cubes and Pyramids

Fisk Building

Lofty Terraces

Reversion to Past Styles

Terraces

Vista in the Business Zone
Each mounted on paper, 17V2 x 13V2
Avery Library, Columbia University

Empire State Building, New York,

1929

Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon, architects

Photostat, 39 x 19

Avery Library, Columbia University

Proposed 100-story Building for
Metropolitan Life, New York, 1929

Corbett and Waid, architects
Photostat mounted on board, 22% x 13
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company,
New York

"A Proposed Solution for New York's
Airport Problem," The New York
Herald Tribune, Gravure Section,

October 1, 1933

Gravure on newsprint, 22 x 16

Collection of Carol Willis

Copyright © 1986 Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York

Design; Homans Design, Inc.
Typesetting: Trufont Typographers, Inc.
Printing: Eastern Press, Inc.

Night in the Science Zone, 1928

Empire State Building, New York, 1929

Philosophy, 1928

Master Building, New York, 1929

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The Museum and its programs
are supported by The Equitable.

Hugh Ferriss: Metropolis

was organized by The Architectural
League of New York, with support from
the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibition Itinerary:

Whitney Museum of American Art
at Equitable Center, New York
June 6-July 30, 1986

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
September 20-November 8, 1986

The Art Institute of Chicago
December 2, 1986-January 18, 1987

National Building Museum, Washington, D.(|
February 4-April 30, 1987

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
June-August, 1987

The Ziegfeld Theatre, New York, 1926